


Intermissions

by langsdelijn



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Brocedes, Japanese Grand Prix 2015, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 13:03:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4877917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/langsdelijn/pseuds/langsdelijn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico and Lewis find their way back to each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Wait

**Author's Note:**

> The session is a washout and they stay in for a majority of the running; no point in it when there’s so little to be gained from the effort. At one point, both him and Lewis end up sat at Toto’s viewing station observing the proceedings, such as they are, crowded against each other because there’s only one small screen and not much room to fit two people.

And it isn’t like he means to, but it does happen—out of habit, Nico supposes, because leaning in to Lewis is very nearly as natural to him as donning his helmet—and Lewis lets it, though he keeps his gaze resolutely aimed at the screen so he can pretend it’s happened without his notice. Nico knows better but, in return for this allowance, lets Lewis have his.

Nico misses him, misses what they used to have because this, sitting here in the garage with their forearms pressed together and their knees touching through layers of physical and emotional insulation is a pale afterimage of that. It used to be breathless kisses stolen in rare moments alone in a different set of garages, hotel room fights turned into playful experimentation punctuated by giggles and hitched gasps, the two of them moving together in beds, in shower stalls, in so many places including once, memorably, at a track after the race, until… until it stopped being about two friends having fun and turned into something else.

At least for Lewis.

It had ended on an ordinary Monday morning with Lewis sat on his bed while Nico was behind him, trailing kisses all along his bare back, entirely unprepared for what followed. ‘Nico,’ Lewis whispered, ‘wait.’

Nico sat back and waited.

Lewis looked down but never turned around, which Nico surmised—later in the same place when he was feeling sorry for himself and frustratedly jerking off to a fantasy of the scene with a different ending—was because if Lewis had to face him, he would have lost his nerve and given in all over again. (And which he did, over and over, on the canvas of Nico’s mind whenever Nico took his dick in hand and brought himself off to the thought of having Lewis back or having him still, depending.) In the silence, while Lewis tried to muster his courage to speak up, Nico admired the lines of Lewis’ back, clean and unblemished and years before they were decorated with colourful patterns of ink, found he wanted to touch him again. He reached out and caressed Lewis’ shoulder blade.

And that touch broke Lewis’ silence. ‘No.’

Nico withdrew his hand immediately. He felt the tips of his fingers burn.

‘We can’t do this anymore, Nico, we have to stop,’ Lewis said. ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ he added after a beat, as he turned into himself and his shoulders slumped.

‘But…,’ Nico began, overwhelmed and bewildered but not actually knowing what to say.

Lewis sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Nico, but I can’t.’

‘Why?’

‘It wasn’t meant—I wasn’t supposed to—I think I’m in love with you, Nico, and what we have, it can’t be… I’m sorry.’ Nico could hear his smile, or at least the rueful expulsion of breath that accompanied it.

Nico watched the familiar expanse of his back and tried to make sense of this though he suspected there was none to be had. ‘I understand,’ he said, even though he didn’t at all, and he watched as Lewis rose and dressed and left with not so much as a glance in his direction.

He cried, then he worked himself into a rage because this was not fucking fair, because Lewis was a—a—well, truthfully the specifics of whatever he was were not that important—but he was one for sure, because Nico had never dared to admit to his own feelings because this was never supposed to be about anything like that, and then he lay in bed and wanked to an imaginary Lewis and after felt pathetic and frustrated and weirdly guilty.

It had changed their friendship; there were limits in place from then on, but they had remained comfortable in each other’s presence and with each other’s touch. And things had been fine between them, once they had settled into their new orbits and fault lines the breakup left had been sanded down by familiarity, at least until that night two years ago when they were both a bit past tipsy but neither of them drunk and Nico had asked and Lewis had said yes and things had imploded rather spectacularly the morning after.

Lewis hadn’t talked to him for weeks. Nico had no longer wanted to speak with him by the time he deigned to. They took cover behind the battle for the championship as the cause for the deterioration of their relationship and the media eagerly ran with it, lamenting the collapse of their friendship in the pursuit of a goal they valued above anything else and at times he had had to bite his tongue not to correct them that all of this had begun because they couldn’t have each other because competing was easy but this was unbearable.

Nico is jolted out of his reverie when Lewis moves his leg and he feels a trail of sparks follow in the wake of its movement because apparently he’s so starved for Lewis’ touch that he can get lost in a clothed leg brushing his.

He tries to focus on what’s showing on the screen instead. It’s pedestrian and boring and rain is the main feature but he figures that it’s better than the embarrassment of getting hard in the middle of the workday with cameras swarming everywhere and some, indubitably, trained on the two of them sitting here so invitingly. He reaches for the mouse and as he’s moving it around, his hand touches that of Lewis.

Nico freezes, his earlier intent forgotten. Lewis’ hand is warm and smooth and achingly familiar. And still here, because Lewis has not broken this point of contact between them. But Nico has no idea if that even means anything. He steals a glance at Lewis, who looks as if he has never in his life seen anything more interesting than this on-board of Fernando in his McLaren-Honda in the rain, and abruptly loses his nerve.

He goes back to mousing and fiddles with the displays as if he had a plan in mind. A moment later he catches the slight incline of Lewis’ head that indicates he tore his gaze away from the screen to look down to see where Nico’s hand went. Nico turns to look at him again and Lewis hastily diverts his gaze once more to the neutral sanctity of Toto’s monitor.

Nico struggles to remain in control of his breathing because all of a sudden his heart is loudly hammering away in his chest and a decision rumbles in his mind like the roar of an engine. He could tell him, could do it here and now under the noses of an audience of millions and no one would know, and it might not make everything better but at least it would be honest.

Nico touches his hand to the top of Lewis’ clasped hands, places it back to the less conspicuous position where it was before but now without the justification of an accidental contact when he gets Lewis’ attention. ‘I have a confession to make,’ Nico says in as carefully neutral a tone as he can manage.

A minute movement of his hands is all the invitation to continue Lewis will offer but Nico has no need for more.

He steels himself to continue a conversation that happened and ended years ago with what he should have said then. ‘It isn’t just you, Lewis. It never has been. I always was, from when we started,’ he admits. And perhaps it should be odd that it’s this easy to recall that moment into the present but then it has been the background radiation of their relationship for so long that they both must be saturated with it.

Lewis nods thoughtfully. ‘Not here,’ he whispers, just loud enough for Nico to hear but beyond that lost to the ambient sounds of a live pit lane pelted with rain.


	2. Resumption

As soon as they’re free, during the lunchbreak a little later, Nico leads Lewis to his room and locks the door behind them.

‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ Lewis asks eventually, to breach the impasse of silence that established itself while they studied each other.

Nico shrugs. ‘I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t understand why it had to be a problem.’ He does now, he thinks, but since he isn’t entirely sure he wants to hear the explanation from Lewis.

‘If you had then maybe… no, that’s not true.’ Lewis shakes his head and sighs. ‘I might have stayed that morning,’ he amends, ‘but it still would’ve been… less than what I wanted.’

‘I made it up,’ Nico admits, because he has committed to a policy of honesty now and there is no point in keeping this secret half a lifetime later and years after the time it mattered.

Lewis frowns. ‘Am I supposed to know what “it” is, or…?’

‘All of it,’ Nico says, ‘everything I said when I kissed you the first time. I made it all up because I thought that if I… well, you know….’ He trails off, lets the implications of the imagined rules of shared teenage boyhood stand when he can’t find the words to say what he means.

‘You hoped that as long as it didn’t have to mean anything I’d let you,’ Lewis concludes, and Nico nods. ‘Tell me the real reason.’

Nico feels his old hesitation stir somewhere in the back of his mind, which is rich of it since the truth has already come out so it’s a bit late to return to the party. He puts that worry out of his mind now. He’s not fifteen and worried about ruining a friendship over those feelings anymore; they’re both adults now and the friendship well and truly has been ruined anyway. ‘I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you because I was in love with you. And I was willing to settle for whatever I could have.’

Lewis takes that in, nods. ‘Well, if it matters, you were wrong.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I would have still let you,’ Lewis says, and Nico can’t decide if his tone is casual or wistful or which of those he’d want it to be. ‘I wasn’t back then, not yet, or maybe I was and I didn’t know it,’—he pauses (to consider this, Nico thinks, like it only just occurred to him)—‘but I was still figuring myself out and I… to be honest, I always kind of used to follow your lead, man….’

‘We could have had…,’ Nico whispers, but he can’t finish the thought.

‘Yeah.’ Lewis smiles. ‘We were… before you and Vivian.’

‘I know.’ He resolutely refuses to contemplate what might have been, because it wasn’t and there’s nothing they can do about that. 

‘But, Nico,’ Lewis cautions, ‘it still would have…’ 

It wouldn’t have been enough for him because Lewis wanted to have something real, beyond what they realistically could have had living the lives they led. But…. 

Nico takes a seat beside Lewis and links their hands together. It still feels like the same natural fit as it did when they were kids, who would admittedly have publicly sworn to be above handholding-age, and as comfortable. 

He looks down at the tangle of their fingers. ‘What if,’ he says, ‘we give it another try?’

‘Nico—’

‘No, hear me out,’ Nico interrupts. ‘I know it might still not be good enough for you, alright, but at least hear me out.’

Lewis sighs. ‘Okay. But there’s no guarantee it will work, you know that.’

‘No, I know. I know. But we’re both still—and that’s not going away, is it, we tried that for years and here we are, right? So… what if we tried this again, properly this time, if we did it in all the seriousness it deserves… what if it’s worth it, Lewis?’ 

‘I don’t know. What if it’s not? What if… instead, what if it’s like it was….’

‘It won’t be,’ Nico promises.

‘You don’t know that.’

‘I do. That last time, the way it happened was a mistake. But I wanted—never mind, it doesn’t matter. You know. This time you know and that’s why it will be different.’

‘I want to,’ Lewis admits. ‘God, I want to. But I don’t know.’

‘We could do it, not everything, I know, but some of it. And, Vivian, you know, she would love to see more of you... .’ Lewis turns to look at him with a surprised half-smile on his face. Nico feels himself flush. ‘Um, that was a figure of speech, not—you know—innuendo, so you’d have to ask her about the… other thing.’

Lewis does smile this time. ‘Are you proposing a timeshare of you between Vivian and me?’

‘I… yes, if you want to put it that way.’ Nico shoves him. ‘I mean it, though, she’d love it if you came over for dinner again more often. She’s always talking about it, like it’s my fault.’

‘Kind of is, man.’

‘Well, and yours too,’ Nico protests. ‘So, that was… what do you say?’

Instead of answering, Lewis brings up his free hand to Nico’s face and presses a quick kiss against his lips. ‘Okay,’ he whispers, ‘you’ve convinced me. But if it goes wrong again….’

‘It won’t,’ Nico promises again. If this is their last chance at this, that’s already one more than he ever expected to have. ‘We’ll do it right this time.’

Nico pulls Lewis to him. Lewis settles into his lap and Nico gathers two handfuls of his sides in his hands and lets himself be pressed into the back of the sofa. ‘I missed you so much,’ Lewis breathes, ‘even after what happened, all I wanted was—’ 

He surges forward and kisses Lewis, gives his mouth something else than sounds to shape in the space between one word and the next because there’s been enough talk of all the missteps and missed opportunities in their pasts and he has several other and better ideas in mind to spend the remainder of time they have until they have to get back in their cars. And a continuation of their current activity is at the top of that list. Nico draws Lewis closer and Lewis responds by grinding his hips down.

Nico gasps. ‘We’re at the track,’ he whispers, as much as a reminder to himself he can’t get too lost in this as to Lewis that their time is scheduled for the day and the schedule isn’t very permissive of much more than this.

‘So? I can be fast, we have time.’

‘No,’ Nico decides, despite his rising interest. ‘Not here, not now.’ 

Lewis looks down at him thoughtfully and does it again. Nico slides one of his hands into Lewis’ golden hair and takes a loose fistful of it in hand. ‘I said,’ he says, ‘not here.’

‘Hmm.’ Lewis works a hand between their bodies. 

Oh, that is definitely not on. Nico tightens his grip on Lewis’ hair in warning, pulls on it hard enough to make him tip his head back, uses his other hand to leverage Lewis’ thigh off the sofa. ‘Stop that,’ he chides, and when Lewis utterly fails to listen to him, he lets go of his hair and grabs Lewis around the waist and wrenches them a quarter turn to the left so Lewis ends up on his back blinking up at him entirely too self-satisfactorily for comfort. 

‘Better,’ he judges, once he’s ensured Lewis’ hands will stay exactly where he wants them, nice and far from his crotch.

Lewis smirks. ‘If you say so, man, it’s your loss…,’ he says, but there’s no bite to it. Nico kisses him again to shut him up, so, hey, everybody wins.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry that moment deserves better fic but oh, well.


End file.
